


The Scent of Light

by einsKai



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Communication, Concerts, Earrings, Falling In Love, Flirting, Gay Character, Getting to Know Each Other, Insecurity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Modeling, Music, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Oblivious, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Photo Shoots, Puns & Word Play, Queer Problems, Queer Themes, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Shopping, Texting, Torao is so STUPID oh my god, Torao learns to love himself - the fic, Trans Character, basically: Minami breathes and Torao falls in love, big metaphor going on, no idols au, that's because I'm gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-28 08:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/einsKai/pseuds/einsKai
Summary: Torao is a monster.His routine is as simple as it is sad: Lead a woman on, fool around, then leave and scrub his own skin to erase any and all traces of the night, and hope that she brags about him on social media.Until he hears that sound that only that one pianist can produce. The sound that makes the beast inside him purr like a docile cat.And he begins to learn.





	1. Twin Scarred Monsters Over The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Multichapter 👏 ToraMina 👏 Multichapter 👏 ToraMina 👏Multichapter 👏 ToraMina 👏Multichapter 👏 ToraMina 👏
> 
> Hi, it's me! I'm posting the first chapter of this already because I love how it turned out!!
> 
> It's based on me misreading a line in something else and my mind exploding with an entire story. And also because I'm the only one watching Bem this season, even though it's not that bad and the monsters there might or might not be metaphors like I'm using it here.
> 
> Anyway, good old Kai making good old stories about queer self discovery? Writing trans Minami? More likely than you'd think.
> 
> Thank you for clicking on my fic and have fun reading now!
> 
> \- Kai

He was a monster.

Torao was lounging in one of the cream sofas the bar offered for seating. There was a woman on either side of him, one leaning into him and the other sitting a little further away. In front of him another one sat on a chair she had pulled up to the lounging area. It was a barstool and way too big for the low table and sofa, so she towered over them like a vengeful goddess. They were chattering animatedly.

Torao didn’t know any of their names.

It wasn’t too late yet, so the bar was pleasantly empty.  
A chandelier sent flickering dots of colourful light into the otherwise dimly lit room, sprinkling the honey-coloured room with regular patterns of rainbow.  
Torao felt a throbbing headache forming at the back of his head that had nothing to do with the glasses of golden alcohol he had drunken already.

He was flirting with the woman on his left, complimenting her hair and her dress and when her giggles became too high-pitched for him to handle with that headache, he shifted his attention to the next one, the one sitting in front of him, who immediately began talking his ear off about that designer handbag she _really_ wanted.

Ah, so this one was after him for the money. Those were easier than the ones after his looks. If they stayed persistent, he could just buy them something they wanted and then they wouldn’t complain if he left them.

Those after his looks and his body on the other hand…

A long-nailed hand traced his shirt in his chest area from the right side of the sofa. She had been leaning into him ever since she sat down, and her perfume was making the air around him heavy and hard to breathe. It was something sweet and sticky, and Torao would probably need a few days to get that scent out of his clothes and skin.  
Her sensual touch made him shiver in disgust.

Monster, it screamed inside of him. You should like this. A beautiful woman is touching you. She _desires_ you. Why don’t you desire her? Monster.

If he took her home she would undress him, strip him bare of all his defences, and discover the monster he had hidden underneath all those layers, the clothes he handpicked to look like a male model from a fashion magazine, his smirk and the playful winks, the voice lowered to whisper compliments into women’s ears that made them blush.  
And then she would tell everyone, and his secret identity, the monster he kept hidden inside him oh so carefully, would be revealed to the world.

He took another swig from his drink. It was good.

This bar was a tad more exclusive and expensive than others, so he didn’t come here that often, but he noticed that the man who made these drinks hadn’t been the usual bartender.

Instead it had been a young blond man, a new employee who seemed to be a few years younger than him. He looked fantastic in the bar’s uniform he was wearing.

Torao felt the monster inside of him curl and gnaw at his heart.

It hurt.

Of course he didn’t mean it like that, right? The man hadn’t looked _beautiful_, that wasn’t what Torao had thought. He was just… appreciating the clothes. Yes. Maybe he should get a more formal suit fitted soon. A vest would be nice too.

Fingernails had given up on touching him and had swapped places with Handbag, who continued chatting his ear off. The air got easier to breathe again as the source of that perfume got further away, and Torao was almost relieved.

Trying his best to nod in the appropriate places and keep listening to both the conversations between him and Handbag and Looks and Fingernails in case they said something that was an opening for a reaction of his, a tiny flirt he could offer them, Torao shifted his attention to the bar, where the new bartender was cleaning glasses.

In front of the hundreds of bottles of colourful alcohol with names Torao could barely pronounce correctly there was a sign proclaiming a pianist would be performing this night. He wasn’t here for the pianist, but he had heard the women saying that they had come here because of him. Now the owner of the establishment that Torao knew as the person who usually made his drinks when he came here, came out of the back room. He shielded his mouth from view discretely and whispered something to the young bartender who listened attentively and then nodded. After the exchange the owner swapped places with him, standing behind the bar while the younger one disappeared into the backroom.

He re-emerged after a minute, dressed down a little, having ditched his vest and bow. In just the white shirt he seemed to glow slightly in the dimly lit room. Like an angel, the monster thought, like an angel from a beautiful painting, radiantly depicted, glowing from behind with heavenly shine.

Without meaning to he had completely stopped paying attention to the women now. That was absolutely against the plan, but he couldn’t help himself.

This was bad. The monster had taken over.

Luckily for him those women didn’t notice. They never noticed, whether he was irresponsive to their touches or didn’t listen to them, in their minds they had all already created an image of Midou Torao and as long as he did the bare minimum to confirm that image, they were happy and didn’t dig deeper. A playful wink here, a comment there, lips ghosting over knuckles, and the monster was hidden from their perceptive eyes.

The young man walked towards the microphone meant for singers and switched it on.

“Good evening dear guests. My name is Natsume Minami, and usually I am a bartender here. Unfortunately we have received word that traffic is relentless this evening, and so the solo artist Sakura Haruki-san who was supposed to play tonight will be delayed. The establishment apologizes for this inconvenience. In his stead I shall play until Sakura Haruki-san arrives. Thank you for having me.”

His voice was cool like the glass Torao was holding, the slowly melting ice reflecting the light of the chandelier above. He was _intrigued_ by this person. _The monster_ was intrigued by this person.

“Eeh, Sakura-san isn’t coming?”, Fingernails said disappointedly.

“The guy said that he’s coming later. Let’s just ignore him and wait for the real deal”, Looks replied.

“I bet he isn’t even good. Isn’t that right, Torao-kun?”, Handbag asked.

Torao saw Natsume Minami’s shoulders stiffen. The lounging area was right in front of the small stage, and the women hadn’t muffled their voices at all. He had definitely heard. He was trying not to show it, but the comments of Torao’s new acquaintances had hurt him.

“We shouldn’t judge without having heard”, the monster said without Torao stopping it. He hadn’t thought about it and knew that he should’ve agreed with them. He regretted his choice when he saw their faces fall. Letting the monster speak didn’t result in good things. It never did. Now he had to win the women’s favour back.

“I’ll go get us new drinks”, he said quickly, to brush over his slip-up and make them forget it even happened. A well-placed wink. “They’re on me.”

The three women cheered. Perfect. The monster had been driven back.

When Torao arrived at the bar he told the owner their order, and the older man turned around to prepare them. He sat down on one of the bar stools and took a deep breath.

The first note sounded through the bar, and Torao couldn’t help himself but whip his head around and _look_.

It was the monster taking control, but for once Torao didn’t feel guilty about it.

The music, while quiet and unobtrusive, filled the room.

It was like he had been in a stuffy room full of people breathing away the air for too long, and then he stepped outside into the night right after a shower of rain and breathed in the cleaned, cool air with a hint of salt from a distant ocean.

If someone had asked him what was missing in the ambience of the bar, ‘music’ wouldn’t have been the first thing on his mind, since the background sounds of the people drinking and talking had been enough to not let it feel empty, but apparently that had been it.

The headache at the back of his head disappeared without leaving a trace, as if chased away by the music. As if it was chased away by a miracle.  
The thick stench of Fingernails’ perfume turned into a pleasant smell that Torao didn’t mind on himself, even if that woman left it there, and the annoying dots of light the chandelier sent through the room still, turned into stars, singing applause to the wonderful sun named Natsume Minami.

The piano was also dotted in them, and they seemed to circle around it, as if that strongest light’s gravity was pulling them in.

The monster inside him growled hungrily. It had never been fed and was starving, but he shushed it again, and tried focusing on something else.

But the healing sound of the music made the monster dance. It was _thriving_, and there was nothing Torao could do to stop it. He found himself not really wanting to.

“He is good”, the owner interrupted his thoughts, setting the finished drinks on the polished wooden surface of the bar. The light shining through the glasses projected shivering golden mirror images of the alcohol to the wood. Torao must have sat there slack-jawed at the pianist for the owner to start such a conversation. He couldn’t find an ounce of regret in himself and knew that it was the monster’s fault. “He is almost finished with his music studies. However nobody ever hires him to play.”

Through half-lidded eyes the old man looked at Torao. In the glint there was something other than politeness and work-ethic. It was raw and a plead, and most of all _knowing_ in a way that made Torao shiver.

There was a monster in that owner as well, Torao thought, and it was much more dangerous than his own, as the owner didn’t fight it, but let it roam free. And it knew about his monster.

He took the drinks back to the table. Under the bottom of his glass the owner had hidden a cheap business card. It was clearly made in an ‘a hundred business cards for 500 yen’ deal, but it was charming. He pocketed it to look at it in more detail later.

“What took you so long, Torao-kun?”, one of the women said. They had swapped places again, so Torao wasn’t sure which one was which anymore.

He stood outside the circle they formed around his seat on the sofa for a heartbeat as if he didn’t want to step forward, and then entered it to reclaim his seat.

“Got stuck chatting with the owner”, he said dismissively. He didn’t want to admit that he was starstruck by the pianist’s music. Too afraid that the monster would show its ugly head.

On his left someone began touching his arm, caressing his bicep in a sensual way that made Torao want to puke. Fingernails, there she was.

“But you were right Torao-kun”, he recognised Handbag’s voice. “That Natsume guy isn’t too bad.”

“He isn’t Sakura-san, but he’s alright”, Looks agreed from the chair.

He smirked and shrugged calculatedly. “I only err seldomly”, he said, and the women giggled. Goal. He had them back.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur.

Sakura Haruki arrived with a delay of about half an hour and replaced those healing tunes Natsume Minami the bartender produced with his own sound, maybe more professional and practised, but not as beautiful, as light, and as free as the previous tunes. Torao found himself missing them already.

Together with the increased buzz from the alcohol, his headache returned as he continued flirting with the three women, perfume heavy in his nose and sticky lipstick stains on his collar. This shirt was a good one and he’d hate for it to be ruined. Why did they always want to leave their mark on him when the monster was a hindrance to him ever being owned by any of them, in any way?

After midnight Fingernails and Looks trailed off to go clubbing, chatting about wanting to dance. Handbag and he were left in the bar that was emptying out now that the pianist had ended his performance. It would close soon.

“Do you want to come home with me?”, she cooed into his ear, her breath hot on his skin, her hand brushing against his fingers, skin against skin.

The monster cried not to go, please don’t go, because it knew what going would mean. It clawed at the walls of its cage inside Torao’s heart, making him bleed, making itself bleed.

He agreed to go.

On their way out his eyes met with the pianist bartender’s eyes. He was back in his work clothes and sorting bottles of alcohol behind the bar. If he hadn’t been tipsy, he could have sworn that the smile he sent him as he wished them a good night and thanked them for their patronage was… bitter, bitter and knowing in a way different from the way the owner’s eyes had been earlier.

But that was just the alcohol letting the monster speak more freely.

The night air outside the bar was cool despite the summerly season and helped ease his headache a little. Not as much as the music had, but it was better than nothing. Around them the night life bustled cheerfully.

Handbag led him to her apartment, probably paid for by her parents, by the looks of it. Not that Torao could say that his lifestyle was any different. He wished it was.  
She poured both of them a glass of wine. It was a wine Torao liked, but the expectation of what would come next made the good wine taste like ash on his tongue.

He barely took a sip before she sat on his thighs and kissed him hungrily.

Stop her, the monster yelled from deep inside him, but Torao decided to shut it up, block it out, lock it up, like he had done all those other times, and kissed her back.

They didn’t go all the way, Torao tried to calm the monster down when he allowed himself to listen to it again. It was cowering inside him, broken. It would recover. It always did. Maybe one day it would just stay down and then he’d be rid of it.

He was outside now, waiting for his cab. They had agreed not to go further today, since they were both drunk and their movements were clumsy already. She had still wanted to, but Torao was tired of tasting the ashen wine on her lips.

She had given him her number written on a post-it note.  
The neon pink of the paper hurt his eyes.

He tried ignoring his trembling fingers when he recalled her touch, her lips on his, on his skin.  
It wasn’t her fault that he felt like that, felt dirty, used. It was his own fault. The monster’s fault.

The pink paper was crumpled up and thrown into a trashcan on the sidewalk, before he entered the cab. Mumbling his own address and then sinking into the seat he tried erasing all memory of this night.

Except when it came to Natsume Minami.

Ah. The slender fingers skilfully preparing drinks and playing the piano entrancingly… The light hair, skin and eyes glowing in the dim light of the bar, like a ray of hope in the dark surrounding the monster in his heart.

The music.

The music, easing Torao’s anxiety at having to pretend once again, easing his headache, another light in the dark. The monster had stopped hurting him for a moment when it had heard those sounds. It had stopped clawing at him and had uncurled, relaxed in the warmth, as if it was a cat lounging in the sun.

The passing lights of the city shifted out of focus and became blurry streaks instead of stoplights, headlights, streetlights, the pulsating ever-illuminated city.

I want to meet him again, Torao thought. I want to hear his music again.

He paid for his cab, a generous tip, as always, and left. His apartment was dark as expected, and he didn’t bother putting on the light, and instead immediately went to the bathroom to wash all traces of this night off his skin. If he didn’t do that the monster would give him hell for it in the morning.

Rinsing his hair he thought about how sad this routine of his was.

Lead a woman on, fool around a little, then leave and scrub his own skin until it was red and hurt. Then he hoped that the woman bragged about spending the night with him on social media to spread the word of him definitely sleeping around, being a womanizer.

If he could only admit…, the monster whispered into his ear, but he focused on the sound of water pattering down against his skin. He couldn’t admit anything about the monster. It would destroy him, affect his father’s business, and everyone around him would begin to hate him more than they already did. Not only everyone around him would, everyone on the planet would despise him, his monster.

No, the monster had to stay hidden. So what if he felt a little disgusting from time to time? It was the lesser evil compared to having his monster revealed to the world.

Torao dried his hair with a soft towel and got dressed for bed immediately. Downing a glass of water in big, hungry gulps and taking another one with him he finally entered his bedroom.

The moment his head hit the pillow he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Torao forgot about the business card in his pocket until two days later, when his brother texted him to ask if he had an idea for a musician they could invite to an upcoming event. It was a 10-year jubilee of one of their hotels. It was in a neighbouring city, and it would be a semi-exclusive event, that people would be invited to with unspoken generous plus not-limited-to-one-but-please-don’t-bring-an-entire-circus invitations.

He retrieved the business card from his pants pocket.

It was a simple design, offering live piano performances of one Natsume Minami.

He gave the e-mail address to his brother with a curt note that he had seen the guy perform by chance and that he had enjoyed it a lot.

When his brother replied that he had hired him only a few hours later, Torao was surprised. He hadn’t expected his brother to hire some no-name artist for an event like this, but who was he to complain? He’d be able to hear that music again.

He told his brother as much on their weekly call on Friday afternoon.

“I’m just happy my little brother is interested in someone”, his brother said over the phone.

“I just liked his music. And he’s a man.”

The monster smirked at him inside his heart. As if it knew something. About his brother knowing. Knowing that the monster existed.

“Is that a problem?”

“…”

A purr from the monster. Satisfied, happy.

“Alright”, his brother said with a sigh. “I get it. You like his music.”

And he left it at that.

The day of the event came earlier than he had expected it to. He went there to help with preparations but ended up standing around uselessly until some ladies decided to chat him up.

It was always like this at events his family hosted.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not necessary that you help. You go have fun’, even when he _wanted_ to help. He clicked his tongue in annoyance at that mental image.

But he had something to look forward to. He had already seen Natsume Minami, being fawned over by the old lady who was responsible for the artists who would perform tonight.

He wondered if he would get to talk to him today.

He wondered if he _wanted_ to talk to him.

Yes!, the monster screeched, yes, yes, yes, yes!

But Torao himself wasn’t sure if he wanted to take that step, too afraid that it would cost him the last of his resolve, the one he needed to keep the monster in check.

Nonetheless he was excited to hear the music again today. On the plan it said that Natsume Minami-san the pianist would perform second, right after a children’s choir from a nearby elementary school. Torao found himself looking forward to the performance so much that he managed to ignore the woman who was currently trying to flirt with him. She left him standing at a table with drinks untouched after he hadn’t responded to any of her attempts at talking to him.

“Scaring the girls away?”, his brother, who had suddenly appeared out of the crowd, asked.

“…I guess.”

“You won’t find a lovely wife that way”, he smirked.

“You aren’t married either”, Torao shot back playfully. This kind of banter he knew. It was comfortable territory. They did it every time they met up nowadays.

“I’m married to my work.”

“Careful, or your pride will drip out of your ears and make the champagne taste bitter”, Torao warned.

“Don’t make up word combinations that don’t exist.”

Torao just laughed and took a sip from his own drink. Talking to his brother was refreshing. _Seeing him in person_ and talking to him was refreshing. It had been a while since Torao spoke to anyone face to face without the monster gnawing at his mind.

That was right. He was a monster. He had almost forgotten with all the excitement surrounding the jubilee.

“Alright Tiger”, his brother seldomly called him by that nickname anymore, so it made Torao perk up a little, suddenly ripped from his poisonous thoughts. “I have somewhere to be. Talk to you later!”

“Yeah see you later.” He waved as his brother disappeared between the other guests again, leaving Torao alone with his thoughts until another girl approached him.

When Natsume Minami’s act was announced almost nobody gave it a thought or went to the stage to watch him specifically. The children’s choir had attracted some attention, because they were _children_, and everyone loved talented children, right? But what good was some no-name pianist gonna do? He’d probably just strum terribly and then leave in shame. Or so Torao imagined the people to think, as he walked towards the stage while the small crowd that had gathered there scattered. Only a few stayed. It was a bit disappointing, Torao thought. He had recommended Natsume Minami for a reason.

He himself came to a halt a little further away from the stage to not appear too interested, even though the monster inside him begged him to get closer. He really didn’t know why the monster liked Natsume Minami so much, but he wasn’t about to cave in and give the monster what it wanted.

He stepped on stage in the same outfit that all other artists wore on this evening. The cream colour fit him, Torao thought. On the stage he was illuminated again, like he had seemed in the bar. Torao still didn’t like that almost nobody was paying attention to him. But he knew that it’d be different as soon as he started to play.

Natsume Minami on stage bowed and received a tiny applause.

Then he sat down at the grand piano and began to play.

The song was a different one than the last time, but the effect was the same as in the bar.

Torao felt relaxed as soon as the first few notes reached his ears. A tension he hadn’t even known existed disappeared from his lower back. This really was the best, he thought, and for once the monster agreed with him.

With satisfaction Torao noted that the people who were listening actually nodded their heads as they noticed how good it was and began to properly appreciate the music. Served them right for doubting Natsume Minami. There was no way that _Torao_ would recommend a bad musician to anyone or request them to be invited to a Midou-hotel event.

Way too quickly the performance was over. Natsume Minami bowed, thanked the audience, and said that he would gladly give his information to anyone who asked him, and that his information was also available from the Midou-hotel that graciously invited him. The he stepped off the stage and disappeared, probably to get changed into his own clothes instead of the borrowed ones.

Torao flinched when a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder and his brother stood right next to him. Caught in his immersion he hadn’t noticed his brother stepping up to him.

“He was actually good”, his brother said. “Good taste.”

“I told you so”, Torao said. “I just wish more people listened. “

“He reached those who did, I’m sure.”

Natsume Minami stepped out from the backstage and began mixing with the crowd. He was still wearing the cream suit jacket over the white dress shirt.

“Don’t you want to say hello to him?”, his brother asked. “Take him somewhere nice.”

A cool, small object was pressed into his hand, and with that his brother disappeared again.

He stared down at the single key labelled ‘roof’ that was resting in his palm. If he remembered correctly then every one of their hotels had a place like that, a rentable rooftop terrace.

The monster awoke from the stupor it had fallen into while the music played and began dancing in his chest. When he approached the musician, who was holding a glass of a beverage and was trying to mingle with people to not appear as if he didn’t know anyone. He was doing a pretty good job of it, Torao thought. He wasn’t only a talented musician but a talented actor as well? How had Torao never heard of him before?

“Natsume Minami?”, Torao asked, and the pianist turned around to look at him.

A flash of recognition on the other’s face.

“My, if it isn’t my saviour from that evening”, he said and bowed slightly in greeting and thanks. “I should thank you for telling your companions off. My courage was greatly influenced by those words.”

Torao felt himself blush and tried to fight the reaction down. “Uh, no problem. I guess.”

Natsume Minami seemed to wait for something.

“My name is Midou Torao”, he tried. Ah, no that was not it, he could read it in the other’s eyes. He already knew who he was. Of course he did.

“It’s awfully stuffy in here, don’t you think, Midou-san?”

That was a hint Torao could work with. Even though it was really specific, as if made for this situation. Had his brother asked him to ask Torao to take him to the rooftop terrace? Really? Had he wanted them to make friends so badly? And how had Natsume Minami agreed to it?

Questions over questions piled up in Torao’s mind, but the monster was overjoyed at this development.

“Then why don’t we go catch some fresh air on the rooftop terrace?”, he asked as smoothly as it was possible for him with the monster ramming its head against his ribcage in excitement. He needed to calm it down. Soon.

“That sounds lovely”, Natsume Minami said and began following Torao to the elevators.

Inside him the monster went on a rampage, bouncing off the walls in his mind. Yes!, it screamed, voice rising to an inhumane screech. Yes, yes, yes!!!

The elevator ride was quick. Of course nobody else took the elevator at this time, not when there was a party going on downstairs, so they weren’t interrupted and Torao opened the door to the rooftop terrace without problems.

It was a nice place, he thought. There was a pool, that was illuminated with the flick of a switch. Since it was summer it was even filled with water, and in theory ready to be swam in. Deck chairs and a canvas awning to shield those chairs from the sun, as well as a table with some benches and a minibar. He could see booking it to throw a party here.

Natsume Minami wandered past him to lean against the banisters. Torao flicked the switch again, and the blue glow from the pool disappeared.

He looked beautiful in front of the city skyline.

Today the sky was obscured by clouds and the lights of the city were shining below like an inverted starry sky, illuminating the dark night with its thousands and thousands of artificial stars.

“Say, Midou-san”, he said, his back still turned towards Torao. “I heard that you requested I play here today, and I’m flattered, but if you’ve fallen in love with me at first sight, I have to disappoint you. I’m not a woman.”

“What?”, was the most intelligent thing Torao managed to say.

“Is that not why I am here today?”, it was difficult to figure out whether or not he meant what he was saying.

What had his brother told Natsume Minami? Had his brother talked to him at all? Was this all a scheme to make him feel embarrassed? Was there a hidden camera somewhere?

“You’re here because I liked your music.”

He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Ah, and here I was thinking I had to reject that aggressively straight Midou-san’s advances towards me. Though I admit that I was flattered… You _are_ very attractive after all.”

Torao’s mind was spinning.

He? Attractive to this guy? But they were both… Wait. There was no way that _Midou Torao_ was attracted to a man, _ever_. The monster maybe. A claw dug into Torao’s heart. _Definitely_ the monster, he corrected himself. So what did this mean? Did the pianist he had only met by chance know about his monster? Did he… did he by chance also have a monster living inside him? Did he know the same feelings that Torao did?

The expression on Natsume Minami’s face was patient in a way that Torao couldn’t describe… or comprehend. It was as if he had reached out to the stars below and asked them what was to come, as if he was expecting something to happen that Torao couldn’t even know or think of yet.

Like a gaping fish Torao stood there, and he had lost every single drop of his usual flirtatious and confident persona that he had crafted carefully and worked hard for.

“Did you know, Midou-san”, Minami said finally, breaking the silence before it could get too awkward. “Every human is born with a parasite. It might just be a minor bad trait, like the habit to chew on nails, or an affinity to drinking too much alcohol, but everyone has at least one, and nobody wants theirs revealed to the world. It sits inside its human, waiting for them to notice it. Sometimes it sits in there forever, never paid attention to, ignored until it withers away. Others discover theirs and try to supress it. But once awakened it can never fall asleep again. It is there forever, tormenting the human until the day they die. Unless…”

Torao interrupted him. It was rude, he registered in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t control himself after hearing those words, describing a situation he was all too familiar with.

“I have a monster inside me”, he began, and he felt a heat rise to his face, one that he hadn’t known before, or at least he hadn’t felt it in a long time. “There’s a monster there, and it’s clawing at my heart and tells me to stop flirting with women. When they touch me or kiss me the monster wants to throw up. It’s always there and I don’t know what to do against it. I wonder, why can’t I just be normal?”

The heat settled behind his eyes. He suppressed the urge to cry with all his might, like he had always done, but he couldn’t stop his voice from breaking.

“I just want to be normal”, he repeated, quieter than before. “That evening it was especially bad. I considered going home, but then you came on stage and played. And somehow your music calmed the monster. I don’t know how or why, but that was the reason I wanted to invite you here. Not anything else.”

“What a surprise”, the pianist said and hid a chuckle behind his hand. “Midou-san spilling his heart to me.”

Torao didn’t know what to reply, so he just clenched his fist to hold in some of these… _feelings_ that he had never allowed himself to feel. The monster’s feelings.

“If you had let me end my sentence”, Minami Natsume said. “I would have told you how to permanently get rid of your pain.”

Expectation let the air between them vibrate with unseen electricity.

“My own parasite is simple, Midou-san. It ate me up in my childhood and almost destroyed me in my teens, but now I have made peace with it. We’re friends now.”

He began unbuttoning the shirt, almost as if it wasn’t even the main activity he was thinking about in that moment.

“Aren’t you disgusted by me?”, Torao asked. His mind still hadn’t quite caught up with the situation yet.

“Disgusted? Why, Midou-san, I almost find you more attractive like this”, he gave him a smile more dazzling and beautiful than Torao had ever imagined any smile to be. He knew Natsume Minami’s bartender smile, and he knew his pianist smile, but this was a private smile. “Honesty suits you. And can you really expect someone like me to judge anyone by the ‘monster’ inside them?”

At first Torao didn’t know what Natsume Minami meant, because he was pretty, and there was no way he didn’t have people fawning over his looks, and ignore his dark facets, but then he looked at the exposed chest that the pianist was gesturing towards.

Silver twin scars on either side of his chest, tissue shining slightly in the low light of the city.

“My parasite, Midou-san”, Natsume Minami said. “Was that I was born in a body that didn’t fit perfectly. But I made peace with it. And I accepted that I had to work together with that voice telling me that something was wrong.”

And suddenly everything clicked.

Torao realised what his monster was, what it wanted, and what it meant that the monster had been so obsessed with the pianist they had seen in the bar. It was different from the other’s own monster, but not too far apart.

And the tears he had held back earlier threatened to come back, this time as tears of relief.

The monster in his chest wept, for it had finally been given a name, and he was so relieved to have finally found a label for the monster, and possibly for himself.

“Are you holding back again?”, Natsume Minami asked. “There’s no need to do that. There is nobody here but me. When was the last time you cried, Midou-san?”

A sob wrecked Torao’s body as he started to cry. He had never known crying to be this healing, this healthy. It had almost the same effect as Natsume Minami’s music.

He had cried like a baby and must have passed out like one as well.

When Torao came to he felt a ghost of cool fingers in his hair, soothing him in his newfound grief for the time he had lost pretending.

The clouds above him were still reflecting the lights of the city. However, they had broken right in his field of view, and let him catch a glimpse of the deep velvet blue and a single star in the night sky underneath the thick blanket of clouds.

Next to him he found a new one of Natsume Minami’s business cards, with a phone number and an apology scribbled on it in silver marker.

‘I enjoyed our time together, Midou-san. Feel free to text me.’

He wasn’t a monster, he thought, and the new companion in his chest purred as he pocketed the business card.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I don't know when the next chapters will come online, but I'm really motivated to write them at the moment, so I doubt it will take super long. Look forward to it! There will possibly be more characters... who knows. I mean, I do and I'm predicting that yes there will be other characters. 
> 
> If you want to talk to me you can do so on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eins_kai)~
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> -Kai


	2. Moonlit Road to Tranquility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, I'm back!
> 
> I got very busy with uni all of the sudden, so the chapter was done but not retyped and I finally sat down and did it this weekend! :D
> 
> Some notes:  
>I'm using female pronouns for Kaoru and they/them pronouns for TRIGGER. Why? Idk but I'm doing it and nobody can stop me. This is queer identity town.  
>Also everyone is aged up by about three years (since time passes in the story it changes) and it's barely so that Haru can't drink yet. I'm sorry baby, it's for the comedy. Endure it, I know you can.  
>and the other mentioned relationships are YamaRyuu and GakuTenn. so yeah who would've guessed? Kai adding YamaRyuu and GakuTenn to everything? how surprising!
> 
> Yeah there's more characters now!! Welcome to ZOOL and a seemingly random group of others. It'll all make sense, don't worry.
> 
> This chapter Torao is an idiot in love and also finds a passion...?! Have fun reading!
> 
> -Kai

He woke up the day after the anniversary event and there still was a monster living inside his chest.

However it had become docile. Tamed. It wasn’t gone, and he doubted it would be anytime soon, but maybe, just maybe… Maybe they could learn to live with each other. And maybe, together, they could achieve happiness in a purer and more beautiful form than he had ever dared to dream.

At the breakfast table he texted Minami.

**Torao to Natsume Minami**  
>Did you come home well?  
>This is Torao, by the way.

Minami answered quickly.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>hello midou-san  
>a good morning to you as well

He was confused for a short while, but just wished Minami a good morning. Then he waited for an answer. While he was brushing his teeth his phone vibrated.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>thank you for asking midou-san  
>i got home by train  
>and was actually fast asleep  
>until just now  
>your message notification woke me up  
>i should mute it

**Torao to Natsume Minami**  
>That’s very good to hear. You’re one to mute conversations instead of your whole phone I take it?

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>that is correct  
>of course i keep those i deem necessary to notice immediately unmuted  
>at least if i’m not anywhere where it’d be inappropriate to have my phone unmuted

That made sense, Torao thought, and something inside him felt happy to have learnt something new about the pianist.

He had decided not to go outside today, so he wandered around his apartment a little aimlessly. After considering rearranging the furniture and deciding not to mess up his entire living space, he noticed that he didn’t really know what one did with their day when they didn’t go to pick up women in the evening and then sleep until midday. He had forgotten how to _not_ be the womanizer Midou Torao.

To his luck in the exact moment this thought tried overthrowing his mind and sending the monster into a frenzy he got another message from Minami.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>today there is a concert  
>the university’s orchestra  
>my friend who said he would come fell ill  
>would you by chance  
>be free this evening?

He added a sticker of a sad looking rabbit. Torao had to smile.

He happened to be free this evening and was about to get his three-piece suit from his closet, when Minami texted him again and reminded him that most people coming would be students and wouldn’t dress formally at all, so there was no reason to dress formally for him either.

Maybe that was good, Torao thought when he went for a jog that had turned from a ‘before breakfast’-jog into an ‘before excuse of breakfast that is almost lunch because he didn’t eat yet’-jog. He hadn’t worn that particular suit in years. Maybe he should get a new one tailored soon.

While walking back to his apartment he mused about the kind of suit he wanted.

A cat was sitting on the sidewalk, in a sunspot that was mysteriously not cast in shadow by the row of houses behind Torao. It was cleaning itself.

Torao snapped a picture and sent it to his brother. After considering it for a little, he also sent it to Minami. It was strange, he thought, when looking at his chat conversations, that his contacts were overflowing with people’s numbers, and the only two active conversations in his inbox were with his brother… and now with Minami.

He found himself hoping that it would stay up there for a long time.

While drying off from his quick after-jog shower and finally eating something, he decided to look up the university orchestra that would be performing today. There was no harm in being prepared, right? Also, if he found out the ticket prices, he could pay Minami back.

He only found one result for that day. It was a private music college, apparently pretty big in the city. Weird that Torao had never heard of it. It looked expensive. Torao wondered if Minami’s parents paid for it, or if Minami was financing himself on his own. Maybe he could ask later.

Just when he wanted to close the website, he stumbled across a name that was familiar. ‘Sakura Haruki’. Apparently, he had been a teacher at the school for the last semester. The article said that he was focusing on his personal life and career now, but that he wished his students all the best.

So Minami had actually known the man who had performed in the bar that evening.

He closed the website and let himself flop down on the sofa.

There were still a few hours left until the concert started.

Torao ended up reading a novel that someone had gifted to him, but his concentration was off. His thoughts kept slipping to Minami, that he’d see him again in just a few hours and that they’d do something together. In the end he only read a few pages, and he had no idea what they had said.

When it was time to get dressed, he opened his closet. Instantly he groaned. Why again did he have to own that many clothes? There were too many options.

Doing the only sensible thing he texted his brother.

His phone rang almost instantly. He must have been bored at work, Torao thought.

“Nice cat”, his brother said.

“Thanks”, he replied.

“A classical concert by college students?”, he could hear the lazy grin on his brother’s face. “Did your pianist invite you?”

“He isn’t _mine_ in any way”, Torao said, before thinking about anything else. The monster in his chest yearned for something all of the sudden. It wanted him to tell his brother about its existence. Torao resisted. “And yes. College students. Informal, but still a classical concert?”

“Hm, how about black jeans and a patterned shirt. I got you some for Christmas, remember?”

Of course Torao remembered.

He got dressed and looked at himself in the mirror. In his eyes he could see the monster. It was weird. Since that conversation on the roof it had been sleeping, but now it was wide awake. But it was different. Quieter. Almost as if it had actually been tamed. It would take him some time to get used to that new kind of monster.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Minami had sent him a cat sticker.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>adorable  
>little friend  
>are they yours?

**Torao to Natsume Minami  
**>I don’t have any pets.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>I would love to lead a quiet life with my husband  
>in a cottage  
>with our cats  
>sounds wonderful

Torao didn’t really know how to reply to that, and was glad when Minami sent his location next, and told him that they could use a pair of extra hands and that he should come help if he was free already.

He arrived at the concert hall when they were almost done, so he was stuck with carrying drinks and snacks from cars to the table where they’d be sold during the break. If one of the students recognised him, nobody said anything about the son of hotel Midou owner carrying a box of champagne and almost dropping it twice. It was fun, Torao thought. The atmosphere was relaxed, the people were relaxed too, there was nobody who wasn’t in a good mood. Maybe it was because it was ‘only’ a small concert, or maybe because there was alcohol involved, but he still felt that a colloquial atmosphere like this would do some of his father’s events some good.

“Hello Midou-san”, a familiar voice greeted him from behind. He turned around quickly to see Minami standing there, holding a few music stands that belonged in the concert hall. He was dressed semi-formally, a white dress shirt and pants. A little like when he had played in the bar. “You could have texted me that you’ve arrived.”

“Ah, I didn’t want to bother you”, he left out the part where the second he had stepped foot into the building, twenty people had surrounded him and swept him along to carry stuff.

“It would have been quite alright”, Minami said. “You look quite relaxed. Was your day good?”

He nodded. It had been one of the best days this summer, even though he hadn’t really done anything. That was… an interesting realization, he thought. How had he always belittled his own misery? Had someone but Minami noticed? His brother? The women he was with?

“Glad to hear that”, Minami said. “These are quite awkward to hold, so if you could help me–“

“Sure”, he took the music stands from Minami’s hands. They were heavier than he had thought they would be, but he managed. “Where do these go?”

“The hall. We have a full ensemble today, so we need some more. The violins, no?”

“Can you show me?”

The hall was empty. The only instruments already in there were the grand piano, a harp, those big drums that Torao didn’t know the name of, and three string basses. While Torao added the music stands to the rows of where the violins would sit left of the piano Minami stood in front of said piano.

“Are you a soloist this evening?”, Torao asked.

“How did you know?”, Minami asked, answering and not answering his question.

“The placement of your instrument”, he explained. “I _have_ been to classical concerts before.”

“Indeed”, Minami sat down and struck a note playfully. It was a rich and full tone that filled the hall. If Torao had sat in the audience, it would’ve probably been even better. The monster purred. “This year we chose a piece that requires a piano solo. It is quite interesting. I hope you manage to enjoy it. I know not everyone can, with contemporary music.”

Minami spoke... detached from himself. As if he wouldn’t have a part in it.

“Are you not playing?”, Torao asked.

“I am”, he was quick to reply. “However, I am but a replacement for Sakura-san, who left the school a while ago. But… well, I guess you have gotten to know me through being a replacement for him.”

He’d read about that on the website, he remembered. “If that evening, I’d thought you a replacement I’d have invited him to the anniversary celebration and not you.”

The look Minami gave him was unreadable.

Soon the hall filled with people. There were all kinds of people, students, but also older people, possibly parents, or just niche music enthusiasts, teachers or former teachers, former students and members of the orchestra as well. It was a crowd unlike any that Torao had ever met in a place like this. It was all new, loud, cosy. He felt great in that mass of people.

Minami stood out against the other people from the orchestra, in all ways possible. He didn’t know if it was because he knew him, or because he was a soloist, or because he was just that good.

Maybe there would be someone in the audience who scouted Minami for their music label. That would be great, Torao thought, the opportunity that Minami deserved.

And the music hadn’t actually started yet.

The orchestra was good. Of course, this was a music college, everyone would be knowing what they were doing, but still, Torao had seen worse orchestras in his life. It was enjoyable. They had one contemporary piece that, like all contemporary pieces he didn’t get at all, but the classical piece after that was nice. So far Minami hadn’t played, he had only greeted guests in front, so Torao was waiting for his appearance.

Finally the conductor stepped towards the microphone and announced their soloist.

Torao tried clapping louder than everyone around him when Minami entered the stage.

He was brighter than all others, his presence outshining everyone else from the orchestra. He took the few steps toward the grand piano and sat down.

The music was… something Torao had never heard before. The pieces in the bar and at the hotel had been calm, they had had a soothing effect on him and the monster, they were soft and had a clear direction, and intent and a function. Minami had delivered them smoothly, enchanting Torao’s heart and mind.

This was… the opposite.

Minami’s fingers moved faster than Torao’s eyes could follow, and the piano groaned as if in pain, the song the chaotic harmony of dark clouds twirling around a faint moon in a stormy night.

The orchestra was drowned out like white noise in the face of this magnificent sound. Torao saw someone’s jaw drop. It might have been his.

It was great, it was the most oxymoronic music he had ever heard, the beauty not in the euphony, but in the cacophony. It was terrifying. It was magnificent. It was unlike anything Torao had ever heard.

With the climax of the music the oily clouds bound the moon with their spell, and took it away, to lock it up for only their own enjoyment, leaving the earth with eternal darkness at night.  
The light’s crusade to conquer the night was over.

On the last note of the requiem to the moon Minami stopped moving, his body hunched over the piano and his breathing heavy, that last note echoing in the otherwise completely empty hall.

Then he turned around, and his eyes found Torao – or at least it felt like that. Probably everyone in the audience felt like he was looking at them right now, eyes wild from the performance adrenaline, revelling in that split second of silence, the anticipation.

His heart sped up when he was met with that look. The monster craved for this look to possess him, for that look to take him away, to keep him captive forever, like the moon in the piece.

Around them the audience erupted into applause, but for him only Minami existed. That small smirk of Minami’s lips, what did it mean? Was it meant for him?

The pianist got up and bowed.

Still in a daze Torao also began to clap.

“He was super good, wasn’t he?”, a girl next to him said to her neighbour.

“Yes, almost as good as Sakura-sensei!”

“He probably tutored him or something!”

“That must have been it… Ah, I wish Sakura-sensei had tutored me too… He’s so hot.”

“_That’s_ your reason?”

Torao didn’t know how Sakura Haruki had played the piece, but in his eyes, it was pretty much impossible to be better at this than Minami was.

He told him as much after the concert.

Minami just chuckled.

“That is a nice compliment, Midou-san”, he said. “However I do not believe that I can call myself more skilled than Sakura-san yet, or ever.”

“Maybe you don’t have to be”, Torao said and exhaled into the cool night air. His breath didn’t turn visible. It wasn’t nearly cold enough for that yet. “Maybe you just need to be yourself for me to love your music.”

He didn’t look at Minami’s reaction, but he heard him shift. Was that too much? Had he made him uncomfortable? Shit, he wasn’t used to being able to speak his mind. Usually he controlled all his actions so carefully, but something about this pianist made him throw all that overboard.

“Anyway”, he said and stretched. “Thanks for inviting me. I had fun.”

“No problem Midou-san.”

“Ah right, how much was the ticket?”

“The costs are taken care of already, you don’t–“

“Then I’ll just have to invite you for dinner sometime”, Torao said and began walking in the direction of his car. “Talk to you later.”

“…yes”, Minami behind him said almost inaudibly. “Talk to you later Midou-san.”

Inside his car Torao supressed the monster’s urge to scream.

**Natsume Minami to Torao**  
>Midou-san  
>do you want to come shopping  
>with me?  
>I need something

**Torao to Natsume Minami**  
>Sure, we can do that. When and where?

Minami sent him a place, a shopping mall in the city centre, and told him to come to the south entrance of it around noon on the next Friday.

Torao texted his brother that he might have to postpone their phone call, which his brother only commented with a sticker that looked _way_ too smug for him saying that he was going out with an acquaintance.

Whatever his brother was thinking, it wasn’t true. Or… at least not yet, the monster supplied unhelpfully. Torao didn’t bother shushing the thought.

“Hello, Midou-san.”

“Hi”, he greeted back.

They stood in front of the shopping mall’s concrete frontage that looked way less inviting in real life than when he had looked at it online. They sure knew how to stage things in photos. There was a slightly awkward atmosphere between them. It _was_ only their fourth meeting, and the first that didn’t involve music in one way or another.

“So… what did you need?”, Torao asked to bridge the silence that made his skin itch. “You needed something, right?”

“Indeed”, Minami said and began walking towards the entrance. Torao followed him. “I need formal clothing for a performance part that will be offered to me.”

“Will be? So it hasn’t been offered yet?”

“No, but I will get a call later. I am sure it is from one of the people at the Midou Hotel Anniversary.”

Torao didn’t know what to say about that display of clairvoyance, and just shrugged. “I know a good store for formal wear–“

“Midou-san, please stop right there”, Minami interrupted him. “I _am_ just a student working as a bartender. Money is an issue for me. I would much rather check cheaper stores before taking recommendations from a young master.”

“…don’t call me that.”

“Alright, young master Midou-san.”

“No, seriously.”

A flash of fear appeared in Minami’s eyes, but it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. He recovered, straightened his shoulders and nodded. “Alright, Midou-san. It seems we both have some preferences that we still need to learn. I apologize.”

He nodded and they took off, walking towards the first clothing store that Minami picked.

Torao had never been to a store of this particular chain, but he supposed it was not too bad. As he followed Minami upstairs to the men’s clothing he looked around. The shop wasn’t too full, and there was pop music playing from a radio somewhere. The clothes weren’t exactly of the highest quality, but some of them had funny prints or interesting patterns.

He picked up a shirt that said, “You used to call me on my shellphone”, decorated with a seashell. He turned around to Minami, who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Do you want these pyjamas, Midou-san?”

“Uh”, he said stupidly, because he hadn’t thought about that in a while. ‘Wanting’ something was foreign to him, especially when thinking about clothes. He just picked clothes from magazines that he deemed appropriate, he didn’t go to a store and picked something. “Not particularly. I just thought it was funny. You know. Shellphone.”

His gesticulating towards the image of the shell didn’t really make the joke any funnier. Still, Minami smiled at him.

Warmth spread from the tamed monster in his chest towards his fingertips. The sudden temperature change made him shiver.

“Well, you could say that these are pun-jamas.”

Torao snorted at the joke, only to discover that the name of the product was actually ‘pun-jamas’ when he turned around to put it away again.

They continued walking through the store on the way to the formal wear department.

“This is arranged confusingly”, he said. He just wasn’t used to going to stores like this. All this ordering clothes online or going to tailors for suits and the like had ruined his sense of the real world, he noticed now. This was a whole different place than he had known and discovering it at this point in his life was confusing and exhausting.

“It’s so that you have to look at everything before leaving. When you see something that you like but did not plan on buying you might still take it. It maximizes the profit.”

“It also maximizes my annoyance at their marketing strategies”, Torao grumbled. “Like, seriously?!”

Minami chuckled, but didn’t comment on it anymore, since they had finally reached the formal wear.

“The clothes at my job are a borrowed uniform”, Minami explained. “Except the shirt nothing you saw me wear in the bar belongs to me. So for that future request I need pants, shoes, and a jacket.”

“Fully proper penguin?”

“If that is what you want to call it, yes.”

Torao smiled and helped Minami look for clothes his size. Then he waited in front of the dressing rooms, while the other changed inside. He checked his phone while Minami was in there. One new message, from his brother. He was asking how ‘it was going’. Torao ignored it.

With the sound of the curtain opening he looked at Minami in the new clothes. The pants fit him perfectly and judging by his walk the shoes seemed to fit too. However…

“The shoulders are too wide”, Minami sighed. “I expected this, yet it is still frustrating.”

It took Torao a moment to put the puzzle pieces together and understand why the shoulders were too wide, but when he got it, he felt the monster growl a sympathetic noise.

“You could get it changed”, he offered.

“That seems over the top for a cheap store-bought suit jacket. Not worth it”, Minami dismissed the idea. His jaw locked. Torao could see that he was upset. With the jacket? With his body for not fitting the prescribed body form that these clothes were made for? Torao glanced at the sign that said “men’s” and felt his gut churn.

“Right…”, Torao took a step towards Minami who seemed to get smaller by the minute. “Give the jacket to me, I’ll put it away. You get dressed again and decide if you want the shoes and pants, and then we’ll look for another store that has a jacket that fits you like it was made for you. Sound like a plan?”

Without a word Minami shrugged off the jacket and handed it to Torao. He took the offensive piece of clothing and took it out of Minami’s sight.

When his companion stepped out of the dressing room again there was nothing left to see of the jacket that had made him uncomfortable.

“You are my hero, Midou-san”, he said with a smile.

Torao grinned. “Let’s try another shop.”

Four shops later both of them were exhausted and Minami looked like he was going to cry the next time he put on anything.

“Let’s take a break?”, Torao asked, even though he already knew the answer to that question. Minami nodded.

They found a cosy café that was entirely yellow on the inside. It wasn’t as obnoxious as Torao would have thought it would be if someone told him that there was a café with a yellow aesthetic. They ordered, Minami a coffee and Torao a piece of carrot cake with two forks, so they could share. The cake wasn’t too sweet and not too carrot-y, but it still tasted like it had been sitting in the glass display for days, and Minami told him that his coffee was off, too much water and not enough _coffee_, so in the end they just stared at their orders instead of enjoying them.

“Sometimes music is like this coffee, or like this cake”, Minami said out of nowhere. “The base is there. Everything should be fine, but something is off. Like a wrong mix of water and coffee beans. It lacks punch, even if it is served in a cute café.”

Torao nodded. While he lacked the musical mind that Minami possessed to be able to play the piano like he did, he still understood what he was trying to say.

“When that happens to me when I play, I feel… Frustrated. There have been times I thought about quitting a performance. Quitting piano. Music.”

“I never heard that in your music though”, Torao said. “I always liked it.”

“You heard me play a total of three times, Midou-san. Of course you would not know my shortcomings.”

Torao shrugged. “So what? Mistakes happen.”

“But for a musician who wants to sell they should not.”

“…makes sense.”

Minami nodded. He took a deep breath, but before he could say what he wanted to say, he was interrupted by his phone ringing.

He didn’t look surprised. “This must be the offer I talked about earlier.”

Torao silently watched as Minami took the call.

After the initial greeting he listened to the person on the other end for quite a while, and then nodded.

“Every Thursday evening, for a month? Very well, I can arrange that. Can we meet over the specific contract information?”, a listening break. “Yes, that is my email address. Please email me the details.”

He said goodbye and put the phone away.

Torao was stunned. How had Minami known that there would be a phone call like this? It was impossible that this was the first time they had talked, right? But it did seem like a first conversation. Crazy. Minami was amazing. It was _intriguing_. _Intoxicating_.

The monster got drunk inside Torao’s mind, barely standing upright with the force of the realisation that Minami was just the most wonderful human being that Torao had ever met.

“Like you said.”

“Like I said.”

“Then we should really keep looking for something for you to wear, shall we? Not leaving it up for chance for you to become watered down coffee.”

“I’ll do my best”, Minami said and chuckled, but Torao saw real emotions of gratitude in his eyes. Thank you for believing in me, those eyes seemed to say. Thank you for accepting me.

“Of course”, Torao said. “I know that. You’re Natsume Minami after all.”

“I suppose I am.”

They got out of the café and wandered around the shopping mall, but there were no more clothing stores that Minami deemed in his price category.

Torao felt bad. He’d pay for a damn tailored suit himself, if it would make Minami happy, and not look like he was about to cry. Like in the third store, where he had looked at a blazer for women as if he considered buying that one instead of one for men. One in that he felt comfortable.

“Do you have any other ideas where you could get something that fits? Where do you usually get your clothes?”

“Ah… a friend is a fashion designer. She gives me clothes my size if I like them, and in exchange I model from time to time.”

“Can you ask her? If she wants money that you can’t afford, I’ll pay for it. As compensation for the concert ticket.”

“Midou-san, that concert ticket was only about a thousand yen, you really don’t have to go to those lengths to–“

“I can see that you’re uncomfortable Minami. I don’t like that. You said it yourself, right? I’m your hero.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did. Now get yourself a suit that fits you.”

Minami closed his eyes and inhaled. “Alright”, he said then. “I will call my friend. I still don’t want you to pay for me.”

“That’s fine”, he said. “I’ll repay you in another way.”

Dialling a number, Minami was engrossed in his phone, when Torao saw something in the storefront of a jewellery store behind Minami. He looked at it for a few seconds, before pointing at it.

“Do you see that?”, he asked. “They do ear piercings without appointments.”

“Would you want your ears pierced, Midou-san?”

Torao felt the monster get excited. Yes. He wanted his ears to be pierced. He _so_ wanted to wear cool earrings. Why had he never thought about that?

“I had my ears pierced when I was a child”, Minami said and brushed his hair to the side to reveal a simple black stud. “I still wear some sometimes.”

“It looks good on you”, Torao said. “I think I’ll go in there real quick while you call your friend.”

“Alright”, Minami smiled. “It is good that you found something you want to do.”

The door rang when he entered the store, and a young man appeared from the back.

“Welcome!”, he was greeted. He had a… peculiar hair colour and style. Torao had expected a jeweller to be a tiny old man in a suit, wearing comically large glasses that let his eyes look bigger than his head, but this was just a regular young man with wild, teal hair.

“Hi”, Torao said. “I… uh. Came to get my ears pierced?”

“Of course”, the jeweller said. “Just a moment. Maybe look at some pieces if you like, while I get the materials.”

“Thanks.”

He did as he was told and looked around. There were incredible works of the craft with gemstones and metal in this store. Partly the individual stones were so tiny that Torao wondered what kind of miniature, extremely precise tools the guy who made them had used.

It was… new, Torao presumed. That he thought about how something was made. That was also partly Minami’s fault, probably. The other brought out sides of Torao he didn’t know existed, and he also wondered about _him_. Where did Minami come from? Was he like this necklace, crafted of various tiny, sparkling stones on a filigree construct of silver wire?

The monster purred. It wanted to know everything about Minami. It wanted… no, _Torao_ wanted to know every of Minami’s stones, even if some weren’t as pretty as the others.

His eyes fell on something else in a display case.

Before he could take a closer look, the jeweller came back and interrupted his contemplating.

“Where would you like to get your ears pierced?”, he asked. “Just at the earlobes? Or somewhere else too?”

“Just the earlobes please”, Torao said. This was a spontaneous decision; he didn’t want to litter his ears in holes from his first earring on.

“Then next question. In the beginning studs are recommended, and we have a few models for you to choose from.”

A small box with a few pairs of studs was displayed in front of Torao.

It was an easy decision, if he was honest.

“These”, he pointed at a pair of simple, semi-triangular metal studs.

“Good choice”, the jeweller said. “They’re one of my favourite designs. Then please hold still.”

Torao waited until the man had put the earrings in the little machine, and then wiped his earlobe with disinfectant. The noise the murder machine made was scarier than the pain. It was over more quickly than Torao would have thought. The second ear almost didn’t hurt.

“That’s it”, the man said. “Please read these instructions on the leaflet on what to do in which cases, but to summarize quickly: don’t take them out the next few weeks or so, or the wounds will close. Twist them a little every other hour so they don’t grow in. If you get an allergic reaction or the wound gets infected go see me, or a doctor.”

“Makes sense”, Torao said and pocketed the leaflet. “I’d like to pay by card.”

“Understood”, he was already behind the register and typing.

“Oh, and…”, Torao looked back at the thing he noticed earlier. “I want this too.”

The jeweller looked up, and his eyes brightened. “Someone noticed it!”, he seemed to be happy. “I worked hard on this beauty. You have a good eye.”

“It’s a gift”, Torao said.

“For your partner?”, a nod to the shop window.

Minami was standing outside, phone in his pocket already. He waved at them when he noticed that he had caught their attention. His smile made Torao feel things he couldn’t comprehend. A certain melancholy, like a river in the moonlight, that would dissolve if one stepped into the water, something to chase but never to attain.

“…yeah”, he mumbled.

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted. I gave my boyfriend a necklace not too long ago, and he loved it.”

The red that crept onto Torao’s face was humiliating, but he just paid and left the store with a little box in his pocket, and a sting in his earlobes. He wondered if it was okay if he didn’t correct the jeweller about the nature of their relationship, but since Minami didn’t need to know about what he had said it should be okay, probably.

“Let me see”, Minami demanded, and Torao turned his head so the other could look at his ears.

The expression on his face was happy, and Torao felt the warmth on his face dissipate and reappear in his heart.

“Midou-san, they look really good on you. And you look happy.”

“I’m in a good mood”, he said. “How did the call go?”

“Ah, she said it was fine as long as I repay her… with my body.”

“With your body?!”, the scandalised look on his face made Minami chuckle.

“She means that I have to model for her sometime in the future. It will be fine”, he said. “For now I will just be grateful that I have clothes for that job.”

“It’s relieving”, Torao said. “Do you want me to give you a lift home?”

The little box of black plastic was heavy in his pocket.

“While that is very kind of you, Midou-san, it is entirely unnecessary. I live quite close to here.”

“Alright”, he said. “Then… see you around, I guess?”

“Send me more pictures of cute animals, should you stumble across them.”

“Sure thing.”

“Then, see you around, Midou-san.”

When Minami disappeared to the other side of the mall, and Torao walked to his own car, he wondered if that last bit of their conversation was a way to make him promise that they’d keep texting.

The monster felt giddy.

“So how was your date?”

“It wasn’t a date”, Torao said. He was on the phone with his brother over the loudspeaker in his car.

“No? Then why are there rumours all over social media that my cute little brother Midou Torao stopped sleeping around because he got a girlfriend?”

“What? There’s rumours like that?”

“Obviously. There’s always rumours about you.”

“I… kinda forgot checking my social media for the last days.”

“Well, they’re all wondering why nobody has seen you at clubs anymore, and the general consensus is that you got a serious relationship now and are going on dates instead of clubbing.”

“Oh shit”, he mumbled. The monster had retorted back to a quivering mess in his chest. His hands were gripping the steering wheel with a force that almost hurt.

“It’s okay. They’re just talking. Nobody saw you with anyone or anything. It’ll die down in a few days. You know how these people are.”

His brother’s words did little to calm him down, but he still mumbled a “thanks”, and left it at that. The rest of the drive was quiet, and when Torao came home, he collapsed on his couch and let the TV show whatever came on.

Unconsciously he hummed along to the theme of a rerun of a show he used to watch as a kid, while he put the box he bought at the jeweller on the table.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to come with you?”, Torao asked. “To meet your friends.”

“They have asked to meet you”, Minami said. Today he was wearing a light pink jacket that seemed to be too big for him over grey pants. The outfit reminded Torao of some of the more artsy fashion magazines he had only bought to talk about them, not because he liked the clothes. Some women liked those.  
Yet, while some of the models in those magazines had looked ridiculous in the clothes, Minami could pull it off.

Actually he could probably pull anything off and look good doing it, Torao thought. The monster nodded. It hadn’t hurt him in a while, he thought. Save for that phone call with his brother after they went shopping it had stayed quiet ever since. It had been quite some time already, Torao noticed.

Without him noticing the summer had bled into autumn. The time had passed quickly, texting Minami, deepening their bond, driving him to concerts, visiting said concerts… there had been quite a few of those now. Minami had said that it was because of Torao’s invitation to the hotel, but he knew that it was Minami’s own skill. He still hadn’t given him that present that he had bought for him when they went shopping together… but he’d take it with him today.

“Did something good happen?”, Minami interrupted his thoughts.

“What? Why?”

“Because you have been staring right through me, smiling, for a solid minute”, Minami dramatically raised his hand to rest his cheek against it. “Did Midou-san finally meet his reincarnated lover from the past and is going to leave me now? How cruel.”

Torao felt his cheeks growing hot.

“Nothing like that. I just thought that you looked good in your outfit.”

The compliment didn’t burn his tongue and the monster remained still. He wondered if complementing others had always been this nice and easy. Maybe he should give more spontaneous and genuine compliments without the intention of defying the monster.

“Thank you. You should tell Anesagi-san later. She designed these and sent them to me to wear them.”

“Is Anesagi-san the same person who got you a suit?”

“If you follow me now, you’ll meet her.”

One of those who would be there today then, Torao concluded. Together they walked towards the rather busy street. Torao had been here before, he recognised a club, a few bars, and a café, but he hadn’t been to the particular establishment they were approaching.

It took up two houses’ ground floors at a corner. The storefront was of unassuming but stylish lacquered wood, and the letters above the windows proclaimed this place “The Room Bar”.

Minami pushed the door open, and a windchime above it signalled their entry.

Out of the corner of his eye Torao caught a sticker on the big glass panel in the door that looked like a stylised human silhouette saying “welcome”. It was coloured in the colours of the rainbow. The monster grinned. A sense of homeliness flooded Torao’s senses, even though he had never stepped foot in this bar.

“Welcome!”, a bespectacled man from behind the counter said. He hadn’t looked at them yet, as he was filling a glass with beer.

“Hello Nikaido-san”, Minami greeted. He had taken hold of Torao’s jacket sleeve and guided him towards a corner of the bar, halfway hidden behind the counter. “Are the others there already?”

“Oh, hi Minami”, the barkeeper said. “Everyone who said they’d come today is here. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

When Torao followed Minami he heard that Nikaido call over his shoulder that some ‘Nagi’ should take over for him, and how he received a muffled ‘yes’ from a backroom.

The table they got to was undoubtedly the biggest one in the bar. It was easily big enough for sixteen people, even though right now there were only five others seated there.

“Mina!”, one of them, a maroon haired guy, greeted Torao’s companion. “You’re finally here! Kao here wants me to model for her but that’s totally _your_ thing–“

“Minami to the rescue”, the one seated next to the loudmouth said. He was drinking juice.

Two other men had interrupted their conversation to greet Minami as well, and the pink-haired woman turned her attention to Minami instead of the loudmouth.

“You’re wearing the clothes I sent you!”, she said excitedly. “Let me check, do they fit right? Is anything uncomfortable? Do you feel good?”

“I am, Anesagi-san”, Minami said with a small smile. “They are very comfortable, and I was already complimented.”

So this was the Anesagi Minami had talked about. The one who had designed the clothes and had hooked him up with a suit that actually fit him.

“More importantly, did you finally score a hottie and are introducing us?”

Torao didn’t really know how to deal with being addressed like that, but before he could give an overly awkward response, Minami talked in his place.

“Please do not overwhelm Midou-san like this, Anesagi-san. I have talked to you about him before, and I expect you all to refrain from saying things that might make him feel uneasy, even in jest.”

“But he _is_ a hottie. And he’s the guy who said he was in love with your music, right?”, Anesagi said in a voice that might have been supposed to be a conspiratorial whisper.

“Midou-san, finally we meet you!”, one of the two who hadn’t said anything but their greeting yet piped up. His hair had two different colours. Frosted tips, Torao remembered. “I’m Momo! This is my boyfriend Yuki. The lovely lady is Kaoru, the juice boy is Haruka, and the other guy is Touma! You know Minami, and you’ve met Yamato who’ll join us in a bit.”

“Why am I ‘juice boy’?! I want a cooler introduction!”

“At least you didn’t become ‘the other guy’…”

The boyfriend snickered. “Momo is always so quick in social situations.”

“That’s because we balance each other out, darling!”

“It’s one of the many things I love about you.”

Touma rolled his eyes. “Just get a room already.”

“Don’t act like you’re any better when Riku is here!”, Haruka said. “Also, Momo! Seriously, did you _have_ to mention my juice? Just because I’m only turning twenty-one in December? It’s only a few months!”

Momo laughed and Haruka groaned.

“Adults!”, he said.

“…I apologize”, Minami said and turned around to face him. “It seems that they got excited about me bringing someone in and are being their loudest selves.”

“Don’t worry”, he said, and for the lack of better words added: “It seems fun.”

He turned towards the people sitting at the table. “My name is Midou Torao. Good to meet you.”

From the counter Yamato, who apparently owned the bar, joined them.

Torao found himself sitting between Minami and Touma and was coaxed into drinking immediately.

His protest that he still needed to drive was ignored by the others, and Minami told him that he didn’t have to drive him back, since he could walk home. Torao nodded and accepted the beer from the blond guy who had taken over for Yamato.

“He’s just the cutest”, Touma next to him whined. His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol. He had already been drinking before they arrived, it seemed. Low tolerance. And a talkative drunk. “I love him _so much_…”

Haruka patted Touma’s back. “Don’t you think you should stop drinking now? And I’m gonna take your phone before you accidentally call someone who _isn’t_ your boyfriend and proclaim your undying love for your grandma or something.”

A sniff. “Haru… you’re the best friend I’ve ever had… I love you…”

“Leave me alone with your sappy crap.”

“You’re so mean for someone your size.”

Torao saw the murderous intent in Haruka’s eyes and decided to intervene before it came to an act of violence.

“How did you meet your boyfriend?”, he asked. Based on the groan and the chuckle he earned from Haruka and Minami respectively it was the wrong question to ask.

“It was on a summer day”, Touma began his reminiscence. And Torao suddenly knew why those reactions had come. “I was working at the time…”

“He was scratching bird shit off rocks. Don’t glorify it”, Haruka mumbled.

“Please, Isumi-san, let Inumaru-san tell his story.”

“Yes… Well, it was a warm day, and there is a bridge that reaches across flamingo land, and I was working. He was visiting and got too excited and lost his balance up there.”

That was by far the most chaotic story he had ever heard, Torao thought. And it hadn’t even reached the interesting part.

“So he fell from the bridge. It’s not a high bridge, so it wasn’t too bad, but you know”, Touma waved his hand around vaguely. Torao had no idea what he meant, but then again, he wasn’t an expert in understanding drunk people he didn’t know well.

“Because he was dazed from his fall, he didn’t move. It’s not high but he was in shock”, Touma seemed to get lost in his own thoughts for a second, until Haruka nudging him brought him back to reality. “Well, the flamingos thought he was food. At the zoo we feed them stuff with extra… uh. Caro-, uhm… Caroteno-. Huh? Carrot. Thingy. You know.”

“Carotenoids”, Yuki offered from the other side of the table. He hadn’t talked to Torao yet, so he was surprised to notice that he had been listening to the conversation at all.

“Yeah that”, Touma said. “It makes them look pretty. Anyway, they thought his hair was food. It’s red… and beautiful… I love his hair…”

“Birds are stupid”, Haruka said.

Touma just shrugged. “Small brains.”

“Like you.”

“…hey.”

“Please Inumaru-san, will you not continue telling your story? Regardless the size of anyone’s brains.”

Without even taking a new breath Touma picked up again.

”The flamingos started eating his hair, so I saved him. And then we got together.”

“Actually”, Minami said, before Haruka could. “He flailed around his broom wildly, making the poor animals fear for their lives, and yelled ‘Are you fucking okay?!’, which woke the dazed Nanase-san from his stupor, only to get his in the head with said broom. He lost consciousness and Inumaru-san gave him a piggyback ride to the first aid point.”

“Maybe that happened too”, Touma admitted. “Ugh, I feel dizzy…”

Haruka got up from his chair. “Then we should go. My curfew ends soon too, so it’s fine for me.”

“But Haru…”

“No.”

Touma pouted.

“Goodbye Inumaru-san”, Minami said, and everyone followed his example and said their goodbyes.

When they had left, the blond waiter brought them a new round of drinks.

It had gotten quieter without the two people next to him. Torao had gotten along with them well already, he thought. Except for his brother he hadn’t had many encounters with people who didn’t want something from him in the last few years. He hadn’t had many encounters that didn’t involve him wanting to strangle the monster inside him to death because of the clamour it made.

Minami next to him took a sip from his drink. He hadn’t ordered a beer, but something else, a cocktail of the colour of a moonlit beach. Torao had seen some women drink similar drinks before, so he’d never dared ordering one, even if they seemed delicious.

As if he had read his mind, Minami raised the glass towards Torao in an offer.

“Would you like to try, Midou-san?

“But it’s your drink”, he deflected.

“I can always order another if you happen to drink it all up.”

“I mean, if you insist”, he said and took the cylindrical glass from his hand. Their fingers brushed against each other for a brief moment, warmth contrasting the well-cooled drink.

Torao took a sip and a myriad of tastes and sensations exploded in his mouth. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, fruity taste masking the alcohol into a dull afterthought, like a distant campfire that couldn’t outshine the full moon painting a mysterious road of silver light on the dark surface of the ocean. A journey guided by the shepherd of the stars.

“This is… very good”, he said after finally coming back from that image, the monster lost on the moonlit shores. “What’s in there?”

“Trade secret”, Yamato from the other side of the table said with a satisfied smirk.

“His partner came up with the recipe”, Minami whispered into Torao’s ear.

“Speaking of Ryuunosuke!”, Kaoru suddenly said and swapped places with Momo and Yuki to sit next to Yamato. “Tenn sent me pictures of them and the others. There are some really nice ones of your sweetheart too~”

“I’m always down for pics of my partner”, Yamato said.

“Show me too”, Yuki suddenly intervened.

“You just like their pecs”, Yamato protested. “My poor objectified honeyboo~”

“That’s not true”, Yuki said and inhaled to add something.

“Their other muscles are also wonderful”, Kaoru completed the sentence and nodded.

“Yuki is so honest…!”, Momo swooned.

Torao had to smile at the interaction. It was weird, but also familiar, a kind of banter that had history, a development, like a practiced routine that these people did day after day, because they were a group. Friends.

“Also”, Yamato brushed over the other three teaming up against him. “If you have any blackmail-worthy pics of Gaku, I have to pay them back for distributing flyers with my sleeping face for my birthday this year. I was thinking of making a banner of their face for Christmas.”

Minami laughed. “Let me join”, he said. “I know just the place to display it. Tenn will want to help as well, we can ask them for pictures of Gaku too.”

“You’re a genius. Tenn probably has the best pictures available too…”, Yamato mused absentmindedly while looking at the pictures of his partner that Kaoru was showing him on her phone.

While Torao had never heard the names of those people before, he still felt that they were important friends to the others at this table.

The monster wanted to show him something. He felt it tucking at his heart. It was… jealous was the wrong word. It desired… yes, it _craved_ a friendship as deep and as accepting as this one. Torao wondered if he could ever have that.

“Hi!”, without him noticing, Momo had snuck into the empty space next to him that Touma and Haruka had left. “Now that we’re friends you need to join our group chat.”

Torao looked to his other side, as if he was checking whether Momo was actually talking to him, and maybe a little to also confirm if it was alright for him to do that.

But Minami was talking to Yamato and Kaoru, a genuine smile on his face, and Torao really didn’t want to be the one to break it up and take that moment of happiness from Minami by asking a stupid question.

“Don’t worry, I already asked everyone who wasn’t here today if they’re okay with you joining, and they said yes!”, Momo showed Torao his phone.

On the screen there were a few affirmative messages from people saved under names that Torao recognised from the conversations at the table.  
There was also one by Touma that read ‘Touma and I agree too. I’m on his phone because he’s drunk. -Haruka’, that made him grin.

“Alright”, he said, and gave his information to Momo.

“If you give me your phone, I can save everyone’s numbers for you”, Momo offered.

“That’d be helpful”, Torao said.

Momo finished the inclusion of Torao into the world of the group chat, and when Torao checked again there was a third active conversation in his message list now. Curiously, Minami’s contact name had been changed from his full name to just ‘Minami’ with emojis showing a snake and fluttering hearts. But Torao would take it.

“Thanks”, he said.

“No problem! Momo-chan is responsible for all the chats, and he’ll do his best to make you feel included.”

A pout from Yuki across the table made Momo leave Torao’s side instantly. He began showering his ‘darling’ in compliments and affectionate gestures, until he looked satisfied again. Torao could only shake his head at how ridiculously sweet those two were.

The evening went over more quickly than Torao had anticipated. He was pleasantly buzzed, the monster hadn’t hurt him even once, and there were ten new contacts saved in his phone.

Like the gentleman he was he held Minami’s jacket for him and helped him put it on. When Momo saw that, he asked Yuki to do the same for him, and of course Yuki complied with a satisfied smirk on his face.

In his own coat pocket the small black box sat heavily. Today wasn’t the day, he thought.

Minami was blushing, and Torao didn’t know if it was from the alcohol.

It _must_ be the alcohol, he thought. There was no other explanation for it, right? He had held his jacket for him in the past, when he had driven him home after performances. And Minami had had quite a few drinks, more than him. Kaoru and Momo had paid for a few of his drinks, and Torao also had paid for a round. Maybe they shouldn’t have pushed the youngest of their group to drink that much.

Together they stepped out of The Room Bar. Despite the late hour the street was quite busy, and they had no choice but to walk behind each other as to not block the sidewalk. Torao walked in front while Minami walked behind, a hand on his wrist to not lose him in the crowd. Compared to the cool autumn night, Minami’s hands burned on his skin, a pleasant burn completely unlike the women’s touch that the monster despised.

When they finally got away from the crowds, Minami led him towards an apartment building. It looked cheap, completely different from his own. But that was to be expected, he thought. Minami was just a student after all.

His companion next to him yawned.

“I’ll come upstairs with you”, Torao decided. “To make sure you’ll arrive.”

“…thank you”, Minami mumbled. “I have gotten more tired than I expected.”

“No prob”, he said, and they entered the building. There were two elevators of which one was out of order, and the other was currently in use.

“Which floor?”, he asked.

“Eleventh.”

“Let’s wait for the elevator”, he decided and pressed the button. It was too late to take the stairs for that height.

“How embarrassing… Midou-san is going to see my mess. I should have cleaned up.”

“It can’t be that bad”, Torao said. Next to him Minami’s step staggered, and Torao reached out to hold him upright.

“I’m glad though”, Minami yawned. “That Midou-san cares about me this much. It makes me happy.”

“You’re welcome?”, he answered with a smile. Drunk and tired Minami was kind of cute, he thought.

With a _ping_ the elevator arrived, and they entered. There was no elevator music, not that he had expected any. But a quiet elevator late at night sure was something too. The rumbling of the machine made him imagine himself being swallowed by a giant creature, to be devoured. Maybe it was that, he thought, when Minami leaned into his side and the monster got giddy, making his heart flutter.

They got off the elevator, and Minami tried opening his door. After managing to put the key in wrong three times Torao took it from his hands and opened the door for him.

He entered a dark room and felt around for a light switch. Finally light flooded the small entrance room with a few coat hooks left of the door, a dresser and a mirror with shoes standing in front of it. There were three doors leading to what looked like a living room, a bedroom and a bathroom. Torao let Minami take off his shoes and jacket and watched him as he opened the door to his bedroom and fell down on his bed unceremoniously. He smiled.

“I’ll get you a glass of water, okay?”

A few mumbled words.

“Sorry?”

“… painkillers are in the second drawer”, Minami repeated what he had just said. “I assume I might need them tomorrow.”

The last word was drowned in a yawn.

Torao walked into the living room. It was brighter than the bedroom or the entrance, because it had a big window that aligned with the moon.

He saw a piano, a small one, not a grand piano like it would be appropriate for Minami, that had seen some years in the corner, next to an array of shelves stacked with sheet music and CDs to the brim. Music shelf. Then there was a desk that was kept neatly, papers and books for school, and a coffee table with a sofa. Everything seemed to be second hand, as it didn’t quite match up, but it was alright, not horribly mismatched.

He spotted a bunch of letters on the coffee table. They were all unopened and Torao didn’t want to pry and look at them more closely, but all envelopes had the same unusual minty colour. It could have been the weird light conditions playing a trick on Torao, but he felt like those letters were ominously searing a hole into the innocent coffee table in Minami’s life with their malicious acid.

The kitchen entrance was behind the living room. He found the second drawer and filled a glass with water.

When he returned to the bedroom, Minami was fast asleep already. He left the glass and the painkillers on the bedside table and tucked Minami in. The autumn nights got cold quickly.

He made sure that all lights were out, and then took the elevator downstairs. Even though he was a good drinker he was in no condition to drive, so he took a late-night bus and let it take him home. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep.

**Minami****💞🐍**** to Torao**  
>midou-san  
>good morning  
>did you get home safely?  
>i forgot to tell you to text  
>when you get home  
>midou-san?  
>are you still asleep?

A break in the messages. Torao smiled, as he imagined how Minami had woken up in his apartment with the water and the painkillers next to his bed and had been happy about them. And then his next thought had been his whereabouts. Then he had texted and actually stared at the screen for a few minutes, waiting for him to answer.

**Minami****💞🐍**** to Torao**  
>ah, so you’re asleep still  
>alright  
>sleep well, midou-san  
>thank you for the water  
>and the painkillers

The monster smiled. It got all bubbly. Minami was cute, texting him right after waking up.

**Torao to Minami****💞🐍****  
**>Good Morning. Don’t worry, I got home safely last night. Sorry for not texting when I got home. Hope you slept well.

Quicker than he had anticipated he got a sticker of some cutesy animal yawning and showing him a thumbs up.

**Minami****💞🐍**** to Torao**  
>you should look at the group chat  
>anesagi-san asked something

Torao was still in bed, he hadn’t eaten yet, and he also hadn’t gotten dressed, but he still looked at the messages. They were mostly from Kaoru, asking about a job. If any of them wanted to come to a photoshoot for her, and that there would be a compensation for helping. He went back to his chat with Minami.

**Minami****💞🐍**** to Torao**  
>do you want to go?  
>with me?

Torao wondered if Minami needed money that urgently, or why else he’d ask about that, and wondered if he should take him out to eat more often, to make sure he got decent meals. But it did sounds interesting, and why wouldn’t he help out? It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

**Torao to Minami****💞🐍  
**>Sure, why not? Let’s go!

Minami sent him an excited sticker. Maybe Torao should get a few sticker packs as well… He had seen some of that hero show he enjoyed as a kid a while ago.

In the group chat Minami announced that the two of them would come, and Kaoru thanked them tearfully, judging by the number of typos and those strange, random arrays of letters that everyone in that group chat liked to use so much. Torao already knew them from Minami, but they were still weird to him. An address and a date and time later that week followed.

Torao was looking forward to it.

The time to meet up with Minami to drive to the address Kaoru had messaged them came quick.

Before leaving the house, he had checked for the little box. It was still sitting in his pocket. Maybe today he would find an opportunity to finally give it to him.

“Hello, Midou-san”, Minami greeted him when he got into the car. “This is not the same car as last week.”

“My dad asked for it”, Torao said and shrugged. “He wanted to go on a drive with it tomorrow, so I brought it to his garage and picked a different one.”

Minami hummed. “I see… I always imagined that if I got a car, I would get attached to it. I would give it a name too.”

Torao remembered his earlier musings about Minami’s financial situation, from back when they accepted the job.

“Do you want a car?”, he asked without thinking.

“My, are you offering? I am afraid I cannot accept that, Midou-san”, Minami chuckled.

“I didn’t mean–“, he interrupted himself with a groan when he realised that Minami was messing with him. “Anyway, I’ll keep this car. If you want to you can give it a name.”

“Hm… I have to get acquainted with the car before I can give it a name. You just have to take me on lots of drives.”

“Sure, where do you wanna go?”

“Really? Midou-san would elope with me?”

The monster heated up his ears. The embarrassment crept up his neck, and he decided to focus on driving instead.

They arrived shortly after.

“The building is bigger than I imagined”, Torao commented when they entered.

“Anesagi-san _is_ a very successful designer after all”, Minami said. “I believe today’s shoot is for the new collection.”

“Right, I forgot to ask, what are we doing today? Bringing the models drinks?”

Minami looked at him from the side as if he just now noticed something.

“Did you not read Anesagi-san’s messages? We’re here as models of course.”

“…Models?”

“Anesagi-san frequently asks her friends to model for her collections. It makes it more real when ‘normal’ people model instead of… ‘perfect’ models, yes?”

“That does make sense, but I haven’t prepared my heart for this.”

“You’ll get used to it”, Minami said almost coldly. “The focus is on the clothes and not you after all.”

Torao sighed and followed the other into the building.

“There you are!”, Kaoru called when she saw them approach the studio.

“Hey”, Torao greeted.

Minami leant forward and covered his mouth with his hand as if he was sharing a big secret. If he had actually wanted to keep it secret, he should have spoken more quietly though.

“Midou-san is disappointed that I declined his advances to elope with me.”

“_You_ were the one who brought up the eloping in the first place! And I wasn’t!”

“Don’t worry Midou-san. I am just teasing.”

“Alright you lovebirds”, Kaoru said. “I’m happy for you two, but don’t elope until we finish shooting.”

Kaoru led the two of them into an area where there were a bunch of clothes.

“This is Anesagi-san’s work mode”, Minami told Torao. “Do not fret, she will be back to sobbing about how handsome everyone is as soon as the shoot is finished.”

He nodded and decided that he’d just roll with the situation for now. The monster was nervous, pacing up and down. Was this risky? Would people see and think about him differently?

“I have outfits for the two of you, but if you want to change it for some reason tell me. The theme this time is ‘androgyne’, so Torao-kun, I picked out clothes that will make you look like a butch lesbian from an American movie, and for Minami-kun I have a dress.”

The words echoed in Torao’s head as if it had turned into a sound bowl. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat.

“A dress for Minami?”, he asked. “Is that okay?”

His eyes found Minami’s, who looked starstruck. Torao didn’t know why his friend looked so happy, but his question still stood in the room.

“I mean… I don’t know if there is a dress in my size or if it’d even work and stuff, but if Minami isn’t comfortable with… you know”, Torao rambled.

“Midou-san”, Minami interrupted him, thankfully before he could actually embarrass himself completely. “I… cannot express how happy it makes me that you are this concerned for my wellbeing, but I have worn dresses for Anesagi-san before. She would never make me do anything I would be uncomfortable with.”

“We’re too similar for me to ever hurt Minami-kun with clothes”, Kaoru nodded. “And now hurry up and get dressed, we don’t have all day.”

She left the dressing room after giving the two of them their outfits. He quickly changed, and Torao was shooed into the make-up corner before he could see Minami again.

At first, they had to do individual shoots. Torao didn’t really understand why his set was a stormy cliff, and why the wind machine had to be _that_ strong, but he did his best to follow Kaoru’s instructions.

It was surprisingly easy. The light wasn’t blinding him, and he actually quite liked that denim jacket.

“Okay, next let’s get you out of that jacket and let you wear it more casually”, Kaoru commanded. He stood still when someone from the team got up on his set and draped the jacket around his shoulders.

He noticed something… change.

Because of the different way to wear the jacket he had to stand differently, to accommodate to it, to make sure it didn’t fall off. His shoulders straightened, his spine did too, his lungs filled with air differently. This was true confidence, Torao thought.  
The monster got excited.

Kaoru cooed. “_Perfect_, Torao-kun. You’re doing great. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing right now.”

Torao nodded. There was a kind of adrenaline flowing through his veins that he had never felt before. He was hyperaware of all the eyes in the studio, looking at him, the hundreds of potential eyes behind the camera, delayed in time, but still there…

And for once he didn’t fear the monster would be discovered if all these people were looking at him, analysing him.

Suddenly standing, moving, posing was so much easier. The cameras and people faded into the background, and Torao focused on his breathing, his heartbeat, and the instructions that Kaoru gave him. It was as if he was moving automatically, like he had been a puffin, clumsy in flight, seemingly unsure in the air when compared to other, more majestic, birds’ grace, but suddenly diving, breaking the surface of the water and grabbing prey with a precision and beauty unthought of before.

It was _fun_.

He was having fun showing off the clothes and himself too. The monster was enjoying it as well, it was stretching its neck and making itself bigger than its usual repressed, hidden form. It was gaining confidence. And Torao didn’t mind.

“Thanks”, Kaoru’s voice got him out of his daze. “Well done, for your first time. You might just be a natural~”

He opened his mouth to reply, only for his eyes to meet Minami’s. The other was standing behind one of the cameras, thin fabric blanket around his bare arms, so he wouldn’t be cold in the studio. His eyes were wide in wonder, and his mouth stood open a little. Torao couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but wasn’t he blushing too? He wondered why.

When he stepped down from the set, Minami didn’t look at him anymore.

“Good work, Midou-san”, he said on his way to the stairs. “The clothes look great on you.”

“Thanks”, Torao said in lack of a more elaborate response.

Minami let go of the blanket and stood on set. He seemed a little lost, Torao thought, standing in the middle of the people rearranging it.

For him, it had been a ‘lonely cliff’, as Kaoru had expressed it. ‘You’re a person who is lonely on the cliff but unbothered by their own loneliness.’

“What is his theme?”, he asked Kaoru, as a new photo wallpaper was prepared behind Minami.

“Lonely merperson”, Kaoru answered. There was a dreamy tone to the words.

“Why are we both lonely?”

“Because in the third and final shoot you meet and aren’t lonely anymore, obviously”, Kaoru said flippantly.

“Oh, of course”, he said.

“Wait”, he said a second later. “Do the lonely merperson and the lonely human fall in love? Isn’t that tragic too?”

“Oh Torao-kun… have you never heard of romance tropes? _Of course_ it’s tragic – that is precisely what makes it so romantic.”

He really didn’t get it, but before he could ask something else, Kaoru switched back to work mode.

“Alright, Minami-kun, I briefed you earlier, let’s get to it.”

Minami nodded, and started _acting_.

Torao had thought so before, but Minami really was a fantastic actor.

With no words and just his body language and expressions he managed to turn himself in that midnight blue dress and the admittedly simple set into the story of that merperson.

If Torao had felt like a gracefully hunting bird in the water, then Minami was a shark, cutting the water in two with his hydrodynamic body, his hair and eyes and face so pretty that it was a lure to all creatures around him.

A lone predator. Hungry. Suffering. Yearning.

“Is the merperson gonna eat me…?”, he whispered to nobody in particular.

Kaoru whipped her head around to look at him, eyes suddenly glimmering in excitement. “That wasn’t the plan initially, but now that you say it…”

“That’s not–“, he began, but gave it up immediately. He doubted that Kaoru with an idea could be reasoned with.

When Minami stepped down from the set, Torao’s heart was still beating high in his chest.

“You were great”, he said.

“Thank you, Midou-san. But I do have experience. My first time modelling was not like this by far. Unlike yours. You have talent.”

“He’s lying”, Kaoru said. “His first time modelling for me was just as good. Stop being humble to appeal to your boyfriend.”

Torao felt the monster flush a bright red. His ears grew hot.

“Anesagi-san look what you have done now. Poor Midou-san.”

“But”, Minami sighed. “I admit it. I did have some experience before, as a child actor.”

He looked uneasy, mentioning it. Torao remembered the pile of unopened letters on the coffee table, all from the same sender.

“You don’t have to talk about it”, he said quickly. Kaoru closed her mouth that she had opened, possibly to say the same thing. “I don’t care what you did before. I’m just amazed by your present skills.”

Minami hid a laugh behind his hand. “Midou-san, that is so noble. You have my thanks.”

Then he turned around. The dress really fit him well. Minami was so bright… a night sky with a full moon.

“Anesagi-san, I am going to get the make-up reapplied. I sweated a little.”

He disappeared in the direction the bathrooms. It as the opposite of where the make-up artist had their workplace.

A hand on Torao’s shoulder made him flinch.

“You’re good for him”, Kaoru said cryptically, and let him stand alone in the midst of the chaos of everyone rebuilding the set for the partner shoot.

When Torao returned from having his hair styled in a way that was more dishevelled than before, Minami was also back and talking to Kaoru.

“So we were not your first choice?”, Minami asked.

“I wanted to have Gaku and Tenn do this one, but they’re still away on that trip”, Kaoru said. “So I asked in the group chat.”

“Are you insane?”, Minami asked, his voice gentle, as if talking to a child. “Making Kujou-san wear a dress? Anesagi-san, you _know_ they would hate that.”

“I’m not _insane_”, Kaoru said. “The merperson was going to be played by Gaku.”

“Yaotome-san, huh… they would have looked good in this dress too, yes.”

“I know! Next time they’re free I’ll have them model for my new skirt collection.”

“Will they wear a top?”

“Of course they won’t.”

They nodded in synch.

Torao cleared his throat to make his presence known.

“So, what’s the plan for this shoot? What’s the story? How does it continue?”

Kaoru straightened her back and went back to work-mode. These transitions were flawless and almost scary.

“Initially they were supposed to fall in love and be forced to part again because of the sea separating them, but Torao-kun gave me an idea.”

“Death?”, Minami asked. Apparently that wasn’t an unusual theme with Kaoru’s shoots, or Minami was just really observant.

“_Obviously_ it’s death”, oh, so it was the former. “The merperson drags the human out to sea to devour them. Out of love, of course.”

“…of course.”

“Wait, Minami is seriously gonna vore me?”

“Nobody is voring anyone”, Kaoru interrupted. “We’ll leave the end of the story open. He takes you to sea because he desires you and you desire him. If he killed you or you died of natural causes, or possibly even lived is left open.”

“There’s no way I’ll survive out at sea though, right? I’ll definitely die!”

Minami chuckled. “Midou-san, you really are invested in your role.”

“Hey, they’re just lonely, right? They deserve a happy ending.”

“Don’t worry”, Kaoru said. “There’s seldomly any explanation printed with the pictures if there’s no interview with the models. It’s still an advertisement for the clothes, remember?”

She seemed a little exasperated. “Just act like you did earlier, and then it’ll all turn out alright.”

Torao nodded. Minami nodded. They stepped on set.

It was a grey beach now, evening waves against scattered rocks, colourless sand harmonising with the cloudy sky.

They stood out against the scenery.

“Please look at each other as if you’ve just met and fallen in love at first sight.”

Minami had been placed on one of the fake rocks, his dress falling along the material beautifully. Textile tides, subject to the full moon that was Minami.

Torao looked at him and thought about how to best summon that feeling.

The monster sent him an image of that bar on that evening, the moment Minami had hit the first key on the piano. An expression stole itself onto his face on its own, and when he focused his eyes on the present Minami again, he saw the same wonder, fascination, infatuation reflected back at him.

His heart beat faster. Minami was looking at him like _that_ again. Starstruck. Moonstruck. He found himself wanting more. He wanted to bathe in that look, in that light. He wanted to learn how to shine for Minami like Minami shone for him.

What was this feeling?

“That was great”, Kaoru’s voice reached him as if muffled by clouds. “Now touch.”

The next few positions washed over Torao in a blur. He moved his body according to the instructions and showed emotions as instructed as well, but all he could think about, all he could see, feel, was Minami.

Minami’s hand on his cheek, on his neck, Minami’s hair under his lips, Minami’s collarbone under his hands.

“Perfect! And now for the last one…”, she paused for a brief moment. “Minami-kun, do you think you can lift Torao-kun?”

The both of them, still caught up in their roles turned around to face Kaoru.

“Lift? Midou-san?”

“You can lift heavy things. I’ve seen you help with concert preparations.”

“Yes, but Midou-san is not chairs or a harp.”

“Just try it, if you can’t do it, we’ll go with a trick.”

Minami nodded. Torao was still in disbelief. If _he_ had been asked to lift _Minami_, alright, but the other way around?

“Midou-san, please try to hold on to me with your legs and arms”, Minami commanded.

“Alright…”, he complied and wrapped his arms around Minami’s neck. The other firmly gripped one of his thighs and guided his leg so that it was also wrapped around his hip. Torao was still supporting most of his weight with his other leg.

“Are you sure?”, he asked again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It is quite alright, Midou-san”, Minami said. A light blush dusted his cheekbones. They were so close, the monster noticed. Minami’s eyelashes were long and really pretty. Not that Torao hadn’t noticed before, both the eyelashes and their close proximity. But he had tried not to let it show on his face too much.

Then he lifted his other leg, and Minami was holding him. He didn’t stagger, even though Torao felt that his grip on his thighs wasn’t one hundred percent secure.

“I think if it is only for a few photos I can do it”, Minami announced.

“Great”, Kaoru said. “I knew you could do it. Minami-kun, look at this camera. You’re satisfied with your catch. You got what you wanted. Torao-kun, you bury your face in his neck, but so that we can still see your eyes. Yes like that. He’s your everything now. You don’t need anything but him and his love anymore, ever again. Focus on that.”

“Understood”, the said in unison, and the sound of the cameras was the only thing they heard for the next few minutes.

“Thank you guys so much”, Kaoru said. “I’ll definitely mail you the issue where you’re published.”

“It was a pleasure, Anesagi-san.”

“Yeah, I really had fun”, Torao said. “I didn’t think it’d be this fun. Mostly because I didn’t think I’d be modelling.”

“Don’t worry Torao-kun, soon you’ll be bombarded with scouting offers”, Kaoru winked. “Anesagi Kaoru guaranteed.”

“For real?”

“It’s always like that. You can just reject them if you don’t want to though. Just promise you’ll model for me again~”

He hummed. Being scouted was… an interesting idea.

“Anyway, it’s already quite late. How are you boys getting home?”

“Midou-san will drive”, Minami said.

“That’s good. Wouldn’t want my precious models be attacked by street cats.”

“Stop joking Anesagi-san. Things like these only happen to Inumaru-san.”

“You’re so right”, Kaoru laughed. “Have a good trip!”

They said their goodbyes and Minami and Torao walked towards where they had parked the car.

“You know, Midou-san”, Minami began. “I appreciate what you said earlier.”

“Earlier?”, with a _beep_ the car doors opened.

“About the me who is important to you.”

“Ahh, that. Well, it’s just that you don’t need to talk about your past. As long as you didn’t kill anyone or anything like that, I’m fine with whatever”, he started the engine and they took off. The streets glistened with fresh rain and the streetlights were blinding. The sky had already cleared up, but the sun had set long ago. It always got dark early in autumn.

“You say that in jest, Midou-san…”, Minami sighed. “But in my mother’s eyes I killed her daughter.”

“You have a sister?”, Torao asked and stopped at a red light. The look Minami gave him when he glanced over made him realise how stupid the question had been. “Oh.”

“She was the one who wanted me to act, so I did it, over and over. Pleasing my mother was happiness, and acting was ‘fun’, was it not?”, Minami laughed. It was empty, and Torao thought that he never wanted to hear that sound ever again. “I stopped for a while to go to school, and I discovered music. Music was so much more than acting – it was my passion, my first love. I liked it more than acting. And I also discovered… My parasite, and slowly began to understand what it meant.”

Torao nodded. He was listening attentively, even though he was driving.

“I told her, expecting to be accepted, to be swept up into my mother’s arms and find happiness greater than before. Instead I ended up on the streets. ‘Give me back my dream!’, she screamed before she kicked me out. It was…”

“Shit”, Torao cursed. “Minami… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It is alright now. I survived, right?”, Minami smiled. “I have a better family now. Even though she still sends letters addressed to someone who doesn’t exist anymore.”

Torao felt the monster tug at his heart angrily.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a park.

“Wanna take a break and relax for a little?”, he asked. The box in his pocket pressed against him again.

“If you want to, Midou-san”, Minami said. His voice was a little shaky after the reveal.

They parked the car and got out into the dark evening. The park was a small green space, it barely consisted of more than a little grass and a few benches. They were all soaked from the rain, except for one under the sole tree in the centre of the park.

“Will she see the shoot?”, Torao asked. There was no need to clarify whom he meant. “Will that be okay?”

“Oh she will undoubtedly mention it in her next letter. She will be _overjoyed_.”

“I liked the dress”, Torao said whatever came to his mind. “It was a good piece of clothing. I prefer your usual clothes though.”

“Midou-san…”, Minami next to him had buried his face in his hands. “Are you aware of what you are doing to my poor heart?”

Torao didn’t know what to make of that, and instead looked around some more.

Under the mix of milky moonlight and artificial illumination from the streetlights around them, the grass seemed almost otherworldly. Angelic blue blades of grass.

Torao sighed when he sat down on the bench.

“Thanks for today”, he said. “I had fun.”

“I only introduced you to Anesagi-san because I assumed that you could become friends. Coming with me and modelling, as well as it being fun are not my achievements, they are your own.”

Minami’s voice was clear and pure like the moonlit beach that Torao had imagined when he tried that cocktail at the get-together last week.

“I also had fun because you were there with me.”

When Minami’s cheeks darkened with a blush, but he didn’t answer anymore, Torao thought that the moment to give him the present had come. Emboldened by the quiet, intimate atmosphere, and the adrenaline from the cameras still flooding his veins and mind with confidence he didn’t know he had, he reached into his coat pocket.

“Minami”, he began.

The intense gaze that the pianist directed at him made him stumble in his determination.

“I, uh”, he said, and even though he hadn’t had alcohol, he suddenly felt drunk, his tongue twice its size and too heavy to move normally. His heart pounded in his chest nervously. The monster paced from left to right, paws silent but heavy. “I saw this in a store a few weeks ago… when we were shopping, remember? And I thought of you.”

He got the little plastic box that he had been carrying around in his pocket ever since he had bought it in that store out of the pocket. Maybe he should have gotten it gift-wrapped.

“Midou-san, there was no need to do that”, Minami said, and once again Torao didn’t know if Minami was being sarcastic or genuine. “You already have my affection. There is no need to attempt and buy it.”

A heat struck through Torao when he heard Minami say ‘affection’, and the monster froze, stopped pacing.

Torao handed the gift to Minami.

“I want to give it to you anyway”, he said.

“If you insist”, his companion said, and opened the case.

Twin moonstones in a silver frame stared up at him.

In the low light it looked like the moonlight had been imprisoned in the jewellery.

“They are beautiful”, Minami said. “Even though I cannot think of an occasion where it would be appropriate for me to wear earrings as exquisite as these.”

He took one out of the velvet bedding and twisted it in his hands. The metal caught the light in just the right way to make it blink. Torao could almost hear the gears in Minami’s head turning.

“Help me put them in”, he said suddenly. “I want to try them on, but I don’t have a mirror.”

“Are you sure?” Torao asked. “I’m not that practised with earrings yet.”

“No worries”, Minami said, already smoothing his hair behind his ear. “I will help if you need it.”

Today he was only wearing simple, dark grey studs. With a few turns it was gone from his ear and sat in Torao’s palm. The other followed quickly.

“These I knew, but I need help with the new ones”, Minami said. “So, please go ahead Midou-san.”

“Alright”, Torao said and replaced the moonlit jewellery in the box with the studs. “Hold still.”

His hands were shaking. It was less because he was unskilled with fine motor skills and more because of the monster getting excited for no reason. He was just helping a friend put on his earrings. That was all.

A lock of Minami’s hair fell forward and Torao brushed it away. It was soft against his fingers, and the monster asked him to touch it more, like the impulse to touch anything soft, like when one saw an animal hide in a furniture store, or found a half forgotten plushie in the closet when cleaning.  
Torao resisted.

Instead he took the earring and carefully put it on Minami’s ear. He prayed that he didn’t hurt him.

But the other stayed calm, his eyes closed, cheeks flushed lightly. Was it the cold air or something different now?

Only when he changed sides and put in the second earring, he realised how close they were. They had been close earlier too, but then there had been something else between them, clothes and roles, a story that wasn’t theirs. Now there was nothing separating them, only silence and the moon watching them in the nightly park.

Minami’s face was so close that if he leaned in only a little bit his nose would bump against him.

He noticed that with Minami it was the only time in his life that he was this close to someone and wasn’t uncomfortable, wasn’t urged to move away, run away, by the monster.

Through hooded eyes Minami looked at him.

“How do I look?”, he asked.

“You look…”, Torao let his hand sink slightly, still hovering close to Minami’s neck. He saw goosebumps crawl up the skin he was almost touching. He swallowed down the urge to touch him and pull him closer. “You look good. I think.”

Minami got up, finally separating them, and Torao’s heart was free and yearning again.

He turned around in front of the bench, the moon illuminating its tears adorning Minami’s face on the left and the right.

Beautiful. He was so beautiful. The most beautiful person he had ever dared laying eyes on. And it was amplified thanks to his gift. Torao felt a warm and smug satisfaction from the monster, that bronze feeling, rich and sweet. It felt good. Looking at Minami felt good.

“I chose well”, Torao said. “You should wear them to your next concert.”

Minami brushed some of his hair out of the way again. “I will see if I can arrange it”, he smiled. “Midou-san, thank you so much. I love… them.”

The odd break didn’t stay unnoticed, but Torao brushed the thought aside. That Minami could have wanted to say something else… impossible.

“Ah, but Midou-san, I think we should really head home now”, Minami said suddenly, ripping Torao out of his thoughts. “It really got late.”

He was right of course, and their walk back to the car was quiet, peaceful, and so was their drive.

Tranquil, Torao thought, and he wished that more of his days could end with a drive with Minami by his side, even breathing indicator of his presence.

When they arrived at Minami’s place, Torao came to the door with him.

“Won’t you come upstairs with me, Midou-san?”, Minami asked. He had already taken a step upwards the stairs, so that their height difference was evened out. His eyes darted from Torao’s face to somewhere else. His pose was open. Inviting.

And suddenly Torao realised. He _knew_ this kind of invitation. He had accepted them all too often in the past.

He feared that if he accepted now, he would cross a line that’d destroy the relationship they had carefully crafted over the last few months.

He… didn’t want that.

He wasn’t ready for that.

The monster wasn’t either.

“I’m pretty tired”, he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “Maybe some other time?”

Minami nodded. He understood. He understood him so well, even if Torao still didn’t understand himself at all.

“Good night then, Midou-san”, he said with a smile. “Get home safely, alright?”

“Sure thing.”

Torao went back to his car and started the engine to begin his journey home.

The monster suddenly craved the touch of a person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> There were a few puns in this one! The 'Shellphone' one I stole from an actual clothing store that I won't mention because the working conditions are horrible (we went in there to get cheap clothes for a cosplay once and saw it there), and the other one was made by my friend when we were riding the hop-on-hop-off bus tour in Dublin. I went "wow this is /super/ Yamato" and she asked "who is Yamato?" because she isn't into i7 but yOU KNOW!!! I love that pun so I kept it. 
> 
> If you want to talk to me you can do so on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eins_kai)~
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> -Kai


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